Trouble with Sandwiches: Questions for Matt Wong

[nhboy]

It's good to read stories like this one. Teens rock!

"Saturday, March 1, 2008 | The whole escapade started with a pricey video camera, and 17-year-old Matt Wong's scheme to earn some cash.

It ended with a two-day school suspension, the shutdown of an amateur sandwich-making enterprise, and Wong's name splashed on CNN.

Wong and his friends had shelled out roughly $3,000 for the camera -- a sleek new tool for the filmmaking society he founded at La Jolla High School. He needed to earn it back. So like any good entrepreneur, Wong scanned his marketplace for a need, and met it.

"Food at school is not healthy at all," Wong said, proffering a San Diego Unified school lunch menu that lists pizza, taco pockets and a scattering of salads. "Monopolies don't get any better."

Wong's brainchild was the Sandwich Company: a cart serving up fresh grilled sandwiches layered with mozzarella, Roma tomatoes and olive tapenade; zucchini, Provolone cheese and pesto. He calculated prices, perused farmers markets, and studied world-famous restaurants; he built his own six-foot-wide cart, equipped with a heating lamp, and solicited bulk rates on sandwich wrappers, shipped on tankers from China.

In little time, he had a stack of sandwich pre-orders. Buzz percolated through the La Jolla High campus as students passed around his laminated menus, peppered with mouth-watering prose. To Wong, it felt like a rare moment of community on campus.

But Wong skipped one step: Getting permission.....

voiceofsandiego.org: News... The Trouble with Sandwiches: Questions for Matt Wong

 

[RadioPatrol]

Getting permission. San Diego Unified schools prohibit students from selling homemade foods. Nor can they compete directly with the cafeteria -- which was exactly what Wong set out to do. When Wong unrolled the Sandwich Company on Jan 15, the principal confronted him and told him to stop. Instead, Wong wheeled his cart across campus, and kept serving.

Could be a health hazard .........


The Gov Hates Competition ..... i think that is the real issue ...... they are afraid someone will do a better JOB ............

What's the red tape you have to go through to actually do this, to do it properly?
There's a lot of random stuff. You can only sell food if it's a fundraiser for a club. And to do a fundraiser for a club you have to get a blue form. And you have to turn that in, wait a week, get it signed by a lot of people -- like the cafeteria -- to make sure the food you're selling doesn't conflict with the food the cafeteria is serving.

Hand to forehead "he forgot his TSP, I mean Blue Form "..............

How would it conflict?
Say I want to sell sandwiches in two weeks -- well, it wouldn't get approved (anyhow) because you can't sell food that's made at your home or made at school. But if it were approved, I'd have to go to the cafeteria and get the leader there to sign it and make sure that what they're selling isn't sandwiches because they have a monopoly. And I can't do anything about it.

 

[Lenny]

As a preferred minority, I'm sure he expected preferential treatment from the authorities. "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"